


A Second Summoning

by Hoodoo



Series: A Girl and Her Demon [2]
Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Begging, Demon, F/M, Illness, Torture, rash decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 02:11:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16864267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoodoo/pseuds/Hoodoo
Summary: Laying with a Demon changed you. It changed the beast too.





	A Second Summoning

There was never any flash of light or noise to herald its arrival. It was difficult to draw a breath for a moment, because the air tended to get a little displaced, but it was nothing that lasted long enough to be a concern.

The candle flames, like canaries in a coal mine, were your indicators of relative safety. When each of them grew again as oxygen returned, you took a breath too. 

You’d called the same demon. Knowing its name made it less taxing to bring the ritual to the objective of summoning him, and less taxing was helpful right now. 

It crouched in the middle of the circle, as it had the last time it was called to this earthly realm. On all fours, it lifted its blazing eyes to you and lifted its lip in a silent snarl as its twin tails gave the same rattlesnake warning you’d heard before.

“Again?” it growled.

Its opening gambit was a surprise. You’d have expected it to gloat and make some snide comment on how you couldn’t get enough, how you couldn’t stop thinking of it, how you needed it …

Maybe you were expecting stereotypical human male preening and posturing.

And truthfully, it wouldn’t have been wrong. 

The beast shifted its position as if restless or uncomfortable. Your gaze skipped over it and you realized that it did not look well. Its ribs were prominent. Skin was stretched over those bones, as well its hipbones. Its cheeks were sunken. Many of its talons were broken or split; on several digits they were missing altogether. Some of its fingers looked broken too, bent into unnatural positions. When it moved again, either unnerved or becoming agitated by your silence and your stare, the flickering light caught cracks in its horns that hadn’t been present before. 

You also noticed that the symbols branded into its hide on its upper arms and abdomen were crossed with thin weeping wounds that could only have come from a whip or other talons. 

It looked ill and beaten. It was nothing like the confident, dangerous beast you’d met last time. 

_“What do you want from me?!”_ it shrieked, startling you. 

When you remained silent, trying to organize your words in your head, it wailed and thrashed in its confines and prostrated itself before you on the scarred wooden floor.

“Look what you’ve done! Look what you’ve wrought!” it screamed at you. 

With its head down, you were able to see that its back from shoulders to waist had also been marked with the same type of wounds that decorated its front. There were also larger, more wicked injuries here, looking as though they were made to eradicate the arcane symbols on its skin. Those were crusty as if healing, but the thinner ones still wept ichor, and you could just barely see movement in them. You guessed there were maggots in the festering wounds, eating him. 

“You’ve done this to me! You’ve stripped me of my power! You’ve made me prey! You used me and then sent me away to be tortured!”

You would have laughed at the irony and hypocrisy of its words, if it wasn’t so pitiful and in so much pain. 

It lifted its golden eyes to you. They held no tears, because demons could not cry.

“You brought this on yourself,” you finally replied. 

The demon hissed, but it seemed more in agony than anger.

“You knew the conditions. I was clear, and you agreed to them. I required your tongue; you decided to fuck me. That was never anything that I voiced.”

“You liked it!” it spit, but there was more than a hint of whine in its tone. It curled into itself, a little.

“Yes,” you admitted quietly. Then, even more quietly, as if the words were difficult to bring from your throat. “That’s why I called you back.”

Maybe you hadn’t been physically beaten, but since the night you’d summoned him, you’d been mildly nauseous and slept fitfully. Sunlight seemed dimmer, flatter, making every day like looking through a hazy filter. The nights were so black it was like a solid mass. Food had no flavor. Other people became chattering monkeys and you could barely stand to be near their insipid trivialities. There was a dull, constant ache in your lower belly, and you struggled against your baser instincts. 

So you meticulously re-drew the circle and the correct symbols on your ritual floor. You’d completed it carefully, thoroughly, and didn’t hesitate to use the bone blade to slice open your forearm again, to drip your own blood into the circle, just like before. 

As you did, that ache in your belly migrated downward, to your groin, where it was a combination of sweet expectation, and phantom pain. 

The Demon Rick you’d laid with had been stripped of its power, like you’d predicted. The curse it voiced to you–that you’d never be satisfied with another–was true as well. It haunted your splintered dreams.

Something deep inside you compelled you to call him back. It was that steady, relentless urge that had you re-create the ritual. So here you were now, face to face with it again. 

The beast before you stilled as it processed your statement. A new expression, one that bordered wonder, eased the lines on its face. 

“You liked it,” it repeated, in a different tone. Marvel.

“Yes,” you agreed again. 

The demon rolled its forked tongue in its mouth as it rolled this information in its mind. Finally, hesitantly, it said, 

“I … I liked it too. When the Hellfiends whipped me, when they maimed me, when they set biting worms on me to burrow into my flesh, when they repeatedly castrated me and fed me my genitals, when they skinned me and flayed my muscles … when they took their pleasure in the torture and in my body, there was always one hidden spot in my mind they could not reach.:

Then it paused, and dropped its voice to finish in a whisper, like it was shamed, “They couldn’t reach the thought of you. The thought of you …”

Its voice faded out without completing its sentence.

Stunned, you couldn’t answer.

Lifting its head again to look directly into your eyes, it continued. “They tried to scourge you from me. They could not.”

There was such pain. You could see it physically on the demon you’d summoned. You knew it suffered mentally, because you did too. You’d used it, it used you, and now you were both tainted, to use its word. It with the essence of your humanity; you with the quiddity of its demonic nature. 

You were both outcasts now.

In your silence, it curled into a ball on the wooden floor. Its tails wrapped around itself, feline-like. It looked exhausted and pathetic.  
You knew better than to be taken by a ruse. It was still dangerous, it would still revel in dragging you back to the nether region that it resided. It would trade you to its Masters to be free of the torture they’d dealt it, and gleefully laugh and join in tormenting you–-

-–wouldn’t it?

It admitted it enjoyed what you’d experienced together. It admitted it couldn’t renounce you. It’d been made impotent by the intimate contact it had with you; its power had been peeled away by beings more evil than it because it had abased itself taking mutual pleasure with you. 

You shifted a little, in your position outside the circle. 

That snapped its attention back to you. 

“Don’t send me back!” it pleaded, as it had previously. This time there was a distraught quality to its deep voice. “Please, please, I beg you Look–look! I am on my knees before you, do not send me away–”

It went beyond simply kneeling before you. It threw itself down, groveling, its hands caught behind its lower back to demonstrate there was no threat from them, its belly exposed, its legs spread. Its head tipped so far back that it had to be painful, offering you access to its throat. It showcased vulnerability by presenting you each tender spot on its wounded body.

Continually stunned by this turn of events, you thought quickly. It could be a trick, but it was a risky one; the bone knife you’d used to open a vein could easily be used against it. You hurt, but it suffered. It suffered so much at the hands of its Masters that it was willing to die here, on the cold earthly realm, than be sent back to them.

“Rick,” you finally said, making your decision.

It cringed, but stayed exposed. 

“Recite these words,” you ordered.

Although it had no clue what it may be repeating or what effect it may have, it meekly copied what you said. It didn’t take long for it to recognize what the ritual meant, however, and as it did its voice grew stronger and it spoke more clearly. It remained in the awkward position it contorted itself into while it obeyed, however. 

When the moment came to provide blood, it did not hesitate. It further slashed open its abused chest, and collected the fresh ichor into the palm of its hand to smear over the drips you’d made inside the circle. You also directed it into drawing new sigils in specific spots on the floor. 

By the time it was done, its strength had drained again. It looked weaker than before. 

You took a deep breath. This was the moment of no return. Lifting your arm, holding your palm up but not crossing the chalk containment you’d created, you invited it to take your hand.

Its eyes flashed. In relief? In victory? You’d find out soon enough. 

The beast lunged forward. You were expecting that, and held your ground. It hesitated for a split second as it reached the chalk, obviously expecting a barrier, but you hadn’t tricked it. Its hand cleared the circle and grabbed yours.

It looked astonished. The talons on its feet scrabbled for purchase on the floor to launch itself forward. It did, knocking you backward in its newly minted desire to break free of its confinement, but it collapsed, weak as a kitten as soon it left the small area you’d called it into. 

You caught it and held it closely, even as the weight of it pressed you to the floor. 

It opened its jaws and took you by the neck; you stiffened involuntarily because even if it were dying now, as its last act it seemed determined to kill you too.

But the sharpened teeth pressed against your skin never met. It held you like that, for a moment, as if to prove it could tear out your throat, then let go. Its tongue caressed away the imprint its teeth left on you. It whimpered something you couldn’t recognize as words, although you inferred their meaning: It was grateful.

It was hot and heavy, laying atop you. You were trapped between it and the floor, and you felt safe.

_fin_


End file.
